ame spirit now; and I invoke
on the part of the British government, as I propose to
exercise on my own, the calmness which all counsellors ought
to practise in debates which involve the peace and happiness
of mankind[233]."

Diplomatic correspondence couched in the form of platform oratory leads
to the suspicion that the writer is thinking, primarily, of the ultimate
publication of his despatches. Thus Seward seems to have been laying the
ground for a denial that he had ever developed a foolish foreign war
policy. History pins him to that folly. But in another respect the
interview with Lyons on July 20 and the letter to Adams of the day
following overthrow for both Seward and for the United States the
accusations sometimes made that it was the Northern disaster at Bull
Run, July 21, in the first pitched battle with the South, which made
more temperate the Northern tone toward foreign powers[234]. It is true
that the despatch to Adams was not actually sent until July 26, but
internal evidence shows it to have been written on the 21st before there
was any news from the battle-field, and the interview with Lyons on the
20th proves that the military set-back had no influence on Seward's
friendly expressions. Moreover, these expressions officially made were
but a delayed voicing of a determination of policy arrived at many weeks
earlier. The chronology of events and despatches cited in this chapter
will have shown that the refusal of Lincoln to follow Seward's
leadership, and the consequent lessening of the latter's "high tone,"
preceded any news whatever from England, lightening the first
impressions. The Administration at Washington did not on May 21, even
know that England had issued a Proclamation of Neutrality; it knew
merely of Russell's statement that one would have to be issued; and the
friendly explanations of Russell to Adams were not received in
Washington until the month following.

In itself, Seward's "foreign war panacea" policy does not deserve the
place in history usually accorded it as a moment of extreme crisis in
British-American relations. There was never any danger of war from it,
for Lincoln nipped the policy in the bud. The public excitement in
America over the Queen's Proclamation was, indeed, intense; but this did
not alter the Governmental attitude. In England all that the public knew
was this American irritation and clamour. The London press expressed
itself a bit more cautio